These days Rishi Sunak’s appearances before the House of Commons tend to mark changes to pre-existing economic support schemes. His proposed winter economy plan didn’t survive a month before alterations had to be made. But even by recent standards, today’s statement marks a big shift for the Chancellor. Not only is the furlough scheme back — despite previous insistences that it must end — it is available until the end of March (with the specifics of the policy to be reviewed in January). Meanwhile, the jobs retention scheme, which had been imagined as a follow-up scheme for the end of furlough, has been scrapped.
While Sunak and his supporters take issue with the idea that this is a U-turn, the move marks a stark change in the Chancellor’s response to the second stage of the pandemic. Up until now, he has been at pains to make the case that the second part of the economic response should be different from the first — arguing that the UK would no longer be in an emergency setting with the economy effectively on life support.
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